Dirty, Two Olives

Dirty, Two Olives. Oil on panel, 6" x 6". ©2019.

I'd forgotten how fun olives are to paint. Not that I've painted a lot of them. I rarely paint martinis, even though people love them. They don't have any color! For some reason, it hadn't occurred to me until now to make a dirty martini. That little bit of brine adds just enough haze to the gin* to give it some contrast.

It's been fun the past several days to see how my painting has progressed. Back at the beginning of the Mixology project, it took months for my painting style to simplify and loosen up. This time, the abstraction settled in far more quickly. I'm sure it will come and go depending on the subject matter. But the looseness of this piece works for me. Especially in the olives and cocktail pick.

I think this martini might star in more than one painting this week.

*don't worry, no actual gin was wasted in the making of this painting.

The Prohibition

The Prohibition. Oil on panel, 6"x6". ©2019.

While I may have stopped painting drinks for a few years, I never stopped hoarding props. After the second book printed, a pub in my neighborhood started serving drinks in these cool vintage Luminarc coupes, a set of which they found at a garage sale for a dollar or something. This never happens to me for some reason, maybe because I don't go to garage sales? I think that might be part of it.

Anyway, with a little research, I found my own set on Etsy. They were more than a dollar. But I love them! And at last, one has starred in a painting. It made a great subject, with its graceful shape and just enough detail in the cut glass to be interesting. The Prohibition cocktail was the perfect color to go with the backdrop I randomly collected a year ago, also while not painting cocktails.